1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to rendering devices and, more specifically, to a rendering device which can be incorporated in a drive assistant device. In more detail, the rendering device generates a drive assistant image of around a vehicle based on an image captured by an image capture device fixedly placed in the vehicle.
2. Description of the Background Art
Disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,670,935 is an exemplary conventional drive assistant device, mainly including a plurality of cameras, an image processing part, and a display device. The cameras are each so affixed as to direct toward the area rear of the vehicle with respect to the vehicle""s heading direction. Those cameras capture each different image of the area rear of the vehicle. Thus captured images are stitched into one in the image processing part, and the resulting stitched image is transferred to the display device for display thereon. With the stitched image displayed, the driver of the vehicle can know in what state the area rear of the vehicle is.
The stitched image offered by the conventional drive assistant device, however, is not informative enough for the driver. As a specific example, when the driver needs to control the vehicle with precise steering like at the time of parking, what the driver wants easily to know is whether his/her current steering will make the vehicle hit any obstacle observed therearound. Thus, needed by the driver in such case is an image helping him/her intuitively grasp the distance between the vehicle and the obstacle. However, the conventional stitched image hardly tells the driver such distance as is derived by simply stitching the images of the area rear of the vehicle captured by the cameras.
Therefore, an objective of the present invention is to provide a rendering device which can be incorporated in a drive assistant device, and a drive assistant image generated thereby being informative enough for the driver.
The present invention has the following features to attain the objective above.
An aspect of the present invention is directed to a rendering device for generating a drive assistant image for drive assistance. The rendering device comprises: a reception part for receiving an image captured by an image capture device placed in a vehicle; a first image generating part for generating, based on the captured image received by the reception part, a lower viewpoint image showing a surrounding region of the vehicle viewed from a first viewpoint; a second image generating part for generating, based on the captured image received by the reception part, an upper viewpoint image showing the surrounding region viewed from a second viewpoint differing from the first viewpoint; and a third image generating part for generating the drive assistant image including the lower viewpoint image generated by the first image generating part and the upper viewpoint image generated by the second image generating part. Herein, a first angle formed between a road surface and a direction of the first viewpoint to the surrounding region is smaller than a second angle formed between the road surface and a direction of the second viewpoint to the surrounding region.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.